A wide variety of video playback devices are available in the marketplace. Most people own, or are familiar with, a video cassette recorder (VCR). A video tape recorder (VTR) is another type of video playback device. More recently, video recorders that use computer magnetic hard disks rather than magnetic cassette tapes to store video programs have appeared in the market. For example, the ReplayTVJ recorder and the TiVOJ recorder digitally record television programs on hard disk drives using, for example, MPEG-2 compression. Additionally, some video playback devices may record on a readable/writable digital versatile disk (DVD) rather than a magnetic disk.
Some video playback devices now on the market have computer processing capabilities similar to that of a personal computer. In addition, some video playback devices have communications systems that allow users to send audio messages to other users who are also viewing video programs on similar video playback devices. For example, such a system is described in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/010,306 filed on Jun. 28, 2001, entitled “SYNCHRONIZED PERSONAL VIDEO RECORDERS.”
These types of video playback devices allow users to communicate while the users are simultaneously watching the same video program. All of the users are in communication with each other. When the communication between the users is in the form of text messages there is no conflict because the system prints out each message separately.
When the communication between the users is in the form of audio messages, however, there will be a conflict when two or more audio messages arrive at the same time (or nearly the same time) so that parts of the audio messages are received simultaneously. When such audio messages are presented through a speaker the resulting presentation sounds as if the persons are speaking at the same time.
There is therefore a need in the art for a communication system and method that is capable of queuing and presenting audio messages. There is also a need in the art for a communication system and method that sequentially presents two or more audio messages that have overlapping portions that have been received simultaneously by an audio receiver.